Gartner: Lotus Symphony No Competition for Microsoft Office
IBM's Lotus Symphony will be unable to break the dominance of Microsoft's Office package according to market researchers Gartner. Open Office still has too many deficits for enterprise use, they say, and the future belongs to Web-based office and collaboration solutions.
In its analysis, Gartner assumes that IBM is aiming to shake up Microsoft's market dominance in office applications with Lotus Symphony. Microsoft Office is widespread and corporations need full compatibility, which Open Office does not guarantee, according to the market researchers. In the long term the institute believes that Web 2.0 applications will prove the more serious competitor to Microsoft, stating that it would take too long for the Open Office project to benefit significantly from IBM's contribution.
Due to its 10-year support guarantee for office products, Microsoft has bred a moment of inertia into its products that prevents the use of Open Document solutions in corporations. Various functions that are only available in MS Office and the lack of compatibility between document formats are the other factors that make MS Office so reticent. Lotus Symphony relies on the Open Office word processing, spreadsheet and presentations software modules, as Linux Magazine reported. IBM thus supports the free ODF with its free Lotus Symphony Office Suite.
Interest in the Open Document Standard is likely to increase, and Gartner's IT strategists cite the OOXML flop as the major reason for this. Barrier-free use as advertised by IBM may cause authorities to move to Open Office in future, as this deficit was a major obstacle in the past. And IBM's press release points to the excellent response the Symphony Suite has received in the first few weeks.
In the meantime, IBM's competitor has not been idle, and collaborative editing capabilities make Web applications a third alternative. This is the bigger threat to Microsoft, says the Gartner analysis, as Lotus Symphony does not offer enough in the line of benefits compared with Open Office.
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Juno Computers Launches Another Linux Laptop
If you're looking for a powerhouse laptop that runs Ubuntu, the Juno Computers Neptune 17 v6 should be on your radar.
-
ZorinOS 17.1 Released, Includes Improved Windows App Support
If you need or desire to run Windows applications on Linux, there's one distribution intent on making that easier for you and its new release further improves that feature.
-
Linux Market Share Surpasses 4% for the First Time
Look out Windows and macOS, Linux is on the rise and has even topped ChromeOS to become the fourth most widely used OS around the globe.
-
KDE’s Plasma 6 Officially Available
KDE’s Plasma 6.0 "Megarelease" has happened, and it's brimming with new features, polish, and performance.
-
Latest Version of Tails Unleashed
Tails 6.0 is based on Debian 12 and includes GNOME 43.
-
KDE Announces New Slimbook V with Plenty of Power and KDE’s Plasma 6
If you're a fan of KDE Plasma, you'll be thrilled to hear they've announced a new Slimbook with an AMD CPU and the latest version of KDE Plasma desktop.
-
Monthly Sponsorship Includes Early Access to elementary OS 8
If you want to get a glimpse of what's in the pipeline for elementary OS 8, just set up a monthly sponsorship to help fund its continued existence.
-
DebConf24 to be Held in South Korea
Busan will be the location of the latest DebConf running July 28 through August 4
-
Fedora Unleashes Atomic Desktops
Fedora has combined its solid distribution with rpm-ostree system to make it possible to deliver a new family of Fedora spins, called Fedora Atomic Desktops.
-
Bootloader Vulnerability Affects Nearly All Linux Distributions
The developers of shim have released a version to fix numerous security flaws, including one that could enable remote control execution of malicious code under certain circumstances.